"Schadenfreude" Part I, Chapter II
Title: Schadenfreude - Part One, Chapter Two
Author: Didi (pyrogrl)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst
Word Count: 3509
Warnings: Heavy angst, character death
Summary: Hermione attends the trials of ex-Death Eater Draco Malfoy and learns that she has a darker side: a side that takes pleasure in Malfoy's suffering.
Author's Notes: Big thanks to Beth, who helped me choose my beta-reader, and HUGE thanks to my beta-reader, Kristin! I like comments. I'm really proud of how this fic turned out, and I'm sad to be saying goodbye to it after so long.
Link to Chapter One: Chapter One
Schadenfreude
Part One - Chapter Two
Hermione grinned wickedly as she stood outside Draco Malfoy’s new cell in Azkaban. The man was nearly dead. They had stopped feeding him, though he wouldn’t have eaten anyway. He had accepted the fact that he was going to die.
“Good evening, Draco,” Hermione said tauntingly. He hated being called ‘Draco’. He raised his head weakly from his knees and snarled at her. He was barely human anymore. “Did you have a good sleep last night? Did Rosie come to you again?”
He was too weak to fight back. His eyes merely narrowed, then his head went down again. He couldn’t look up for very long anymore.
“Good,” she said. “Luna has been saying that she can sleep easier these days, knowing that you’re about to die. She knows that your death won’t bring back Rose, but at least if she and Harry have any more children you won’t be around to murder them.”
She had no idea that cruelty could feel so good.
Hermione woke with a jolt, drenched in a cold sweat. She’d been having the same dream for five nights now, ever since the trial. Shuddering, she pushed off her duvet cover and walked shakily to her bathroom.
She was currently living in a one-bedroom Muggle flat in London. It was at nearly the perfect distance between the Ministry of Magic and Diagon Alley, though it wasn’t in the greatest shape. The carpet still smelled like feet despite her many attempts to clean it, including magical products. She was saving up to get the peeling wallpaper repaired (she didn’t want to risk using magic in case her landlord became suspicious) and the electricity was always on the fritz. The plumbing was good however and the water was safe enough to drink. Still, she was only there to sleep, as she spent most of her day at work. All she needed was a bed, bathroom, shower and place to store her books.
She flicked on the bathroom light and only one of the three bulbs above the mirror came on. She groaned, but turned on her sink faucet and splashed some water on her face and dried it with a cloth. She could fix the bulbs with magic, she supposed, but as she was living in a primarily Muggle environment she felt that magic was only to be used when it was absolutely necessary.
Like on my carpet, she thought bitterly. She had been living in that apartment for five years and still she wasn’t used to the smell. An Auror, she had soon learned, was not as well-paying of a job as she’d originally thought. Harry had offered her money quite a few times, but she had always refused. Ron was worse off than she was, anyway.
She looked at her reflection in the mirror. She had dark circles under her eyes. Her skin was pale - almost pasty, she realized with a grimace. Her brown eyes were dull, her lips were chapped, her bushy hair now looked as though it had been first electrocuted and then suffered from intense winter static…Merlin, had she gone to work like that?
“You’re a mess,” she said to herself.
It was Malfoy’s fault, she told herself as she flicked off the light and felt her way back to bed. If he had never attacked Neville…if he had never killed Rosie…and the damn trial…
She couldn’t sleep like that. Rolling onto her side, she looked at her alarm clock. It was five-thirty in the morning. She had to get up for work in a half-hour anyway. Sighing, she sat up and stretched. Again, she threw off her blankets and felt her way through the dark to flick on her lights. Her eyes adjusted quickly and she went to her closet, picking out a white blouse and grey skirt to wear on her way to work (she kept her robes in her office). She laid them out on her bed and left them there while she brushed her teeth and washed her face. She attempted to tame her rat’s nest, but it was a lost cause. Sighing, she grabbed the only ponytail she owned off the counter and tied back as much hair as she could with it before surveying herself in the mirror.
Well, she could look worse. She changed into her clothes for the day and went into her kitchen to make breakfast.
She was out of oatmeal. Hermione opened the door to her fridge. The bulb didn’t flick on. The electricity had broken down that night and while it worked for a little while that morning while she’d been getting ready, it was down again. Now everything in her fridge (milk, lettuce and leftover bacon) was rotten.
Enough was enough. She would complain to the superintendent before she went to work. She was sure that the other residents were just as dissatisfied. Why she hadn’t gone to him earlier, she didn’t know.
Why wait for work? Phone him now. Wake him up, said a nasty little voice in her mind. Huh. That didn’t seem like a bad idea - except she couldn’t phone him. Her phone quit ages ago - not like it would work at this time anyway. Well, sooner or later someone would hear about the poor living conditions here and do something about it.
Hermione went to the door and grabbed her plain brown jacket off the hook. She felt inside the pocket; she had five pounds in it. She had enough for tea, and maybe a muffin. She went into her bedroom and pulled her wand out from under her mattress, shoved it in her sleeve, grabbed her old book-bag, and left.
…schadenfreude…
Hermione stood outside the Burrow, staring up at the place she’d loved to visit as a teenager. It was a bit more crooked than usual, with a few more planks of wood rotting, but it still gave off a feeling of comfort and home to an outsider. She sighed, then knocked on the door. She heard the familiar excited hooting of Ron’s owl, Pigwidgeon. Though he was aging, the owl was still brimming with energy.
“Bloody hell, Pig!” she heard Ron holler at his owl as he approached the door. “Calm down!” He opened the door, holding Pig with his right hand. “Hermione! What are you doing here?”
“I…” Hermione paused. Was it the right time for her to be going to Ron for comfort? They had, after all, just broken up, if one could call it that. She swallowed. Ron was her friend, and a good friend at that. She could tell him.
“Come in,” Ron said, guiding her inside. He and Ginny were the only ones who lived in the Burrow now; Molly and Arthur had died in the war. Hermione saw boxes strewn everywhere, filled to the brim with items that she couldn’t put a name on. Ron caught her gaze. “It’s stuff that Mum and Dad left. We have to sell some of it. To free up space, you know…” He released Pig and lifted a box off a chair with his wand, setting it down by the stairs. Hermione took the hint and sat down in it while Ron cleared a spot for himself. “What’s up?”
“I went to take money out of my account today,” said Hermione tonelessly. “I’ve had a Muggle bank account ever since I was born, and I wanted to convert it into wizard currency.”
Ron nodded. “Yes, and…”
“And my parents removed it all.”
He was taken aback. “Why would they do that?”
“I never told you this, but I had a row with them last week. They wanted me to come back to the Muggle world, go to university, lead a ‘normal’ life. They thought that the wizarding world was too dangerous for someone like me.”
“By ‘someone like you’ they meant…Muggle-born?”
“Partly. They also meant ‘intellectual’. They saw what I went through with the war and they didn’t want that to happen again. They’re trying to protect me. I told them that there was a reason I was a witch, and that was so I could help Harry fight Voldemort.”
“And they said you’d done your part.”
Hermione nodded. Ron made a motion as if to touch her shoulder gently, but Hermione continued: “I told them that it was my decision. I wanted to stay in the wizarding world, because it was so much of my life and because I believe that I’m meant to stay here. Needless to say, they weren’t very pleased with me. They told me that though they supported me, magic had always made them uncomfortable. They’re too logical and rational to accept it, really. Then my father said that I had a choice to make: be a Granger, or be a witch.”
“He didn’t!”
“He did. It’s so unlike them, Ron. They were always encouraging me in my magic before. I guess that when Voldemort returned to power they panicked.” She sighed and rubbed her temples. “I was going to be a doctor,” she said quietly. “Before I learned that I was a witch, I said that I wanted to be a doctor. I suppose they still wanted that for me.” She looked up at Ron, her eyes starting to sting with tears. “I told them that my life would never be fulfilled if I…if I stayed a Granger. And then I Disapparated. I Disapparated right in front of them.”
“Where’d you go?” Ron asked.
“The Leaky Cauldron. I stayed there for a few days while I went apartment hunting. I figured that you and Ginny would be busy here, and Harry and Luna were on their honeymoon…”
“You should have come straight here,” Ron said, coming over to Hermione and kneeling in front of her. “Ginny and I weren’t doing anything important. Do you…” He hesitated and Hermione could see that his conscience was fighting common sense. “Do you want us to lend you some money?”
“No thank you,” she said, smiling softly at his kindness. “We get paid in three days, remember?”
“Right.”
“I think I just needed to tell someone. Thank you, Ron.” She leaned forward and hugged him tightly. “You’ve always been there for me.”
“That’s what friends are for,” he said. “You’re staying here until you can find your own place. No, don’t argue.” Hermione had pulled back, opening her mouth to refuse. “We’re not that bad off. Besides, you know that you want to.” He grinned at her. She smiled back.
“Thank you.”
…schadenfreude…
“Go home.”
Hermione looked up and saw Tonks leaning in the doorway to her office. During the war, she’d been promoted to Head Auror. Hermione was grateful that she had someone like Tonks as her superior; it certainly made her job easier knowing that her Muggle heritage wasn’t keeping her from advancing.
“What?” she asked.
“You look…well, I don’t know how to say this nicely, you look terrible.” She came into the office and perched on the edge of Hermione’s desk. “Go home and rest, Hermione.”
“I can’t,” she protested. “I’ve got a lot of reading to do, for the trial.”
“Consider them done,” she said. “I’ll get Ron to do them. Go home, Hermione.”
“But…” Tonks’ expression hardened. Hermione sighed. “Very well. Let me go tell Ron first.”
“Fine.” Tonks smiled at her and left. Hermione rubbed her eyes and looked at the pile of notes she’d currently written on Malfoy’s past. She couldn’t remember any of what she’d written. She gathered them up and stuck them into her book-bag. She shrugged off her robe, hung it up and grabbed her jacket before heading to Ron’s office.
“Ron,” she said, knocking on the door. He looked up from the book he was reading. Hermione glanced at the spine; it was one he’d read numerous times already on the Unforgivable Curses. Ron insisted that if he studied them hard enough, he could come up with sure-fire charms to protect someone from them that were more efficient that the Shield Charm…well, except for the Killing Curse. So far, he hadn’t had any luck.
“Hey,” he said. “You look tired.”
“Tonks told me to go home,” she said. “Have you spoken to Harry?”
“Yeah. He said that he’ll be ready by the trial. He also wants to apologize for his outburst.”
“I know. I should go see him tonight.”
“No,” he said, making his way around his desk to her. “You need rest.”
I can’t rest, she wanted to say, but found that she couldn’t tell him the truth. “Thank you. Oh, Tonks said that you’re supposed to finish my research.”
“On Malfoy?”
“Yes.” She pulled out the notes she had and magically copied them with her wand. “These are what I have so far. They go up to September, 1997. I want to know exactly what I’m up against.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Ron said. He gave Hermione a quick squeeze before she left.
Once out of the Ministry, she automatically walked towards her flat (Apparition was something she considered useful only in emergencies or long-distance travel, and walking was good exercise anyway). It was about four blocks away; Hermione quickened her pace, for dark clouds circled overhead.
She’d managed to walk another twenty steps before the first fat raindrop fell on her nose. She saw more drops slowly fall, and then it began to pour. She stopped in the middle of sidewalk, allowing the rain to soak her through and through. She had always liked rain. It seemed to purify things. Like the way it was washing garbage out of the gutters, she hoped it would wash her of her nightmares.
All around her, Muggles were shrieking in surprise and diving into the nearest store for shelter. Hermione ignored them and continued to walk. When she came to the intersection where, if she went left, she would head home, she stopped again. She had no desire to go back to the flat that most likely would be a fish tank when she arrived.
She turned right, not knowing her true destination but allowing her feet to carry her there.
You’ll catch cold, she thought to herself. Ducking into a dark alley, she pulled out her wand and performed a warming jinx on herself. Though she would still be wet, she wouldn’t get sick. She tucked her wand away and continued her walk, her hands shoved into her pockets, her head ducked down slightly.
“Mama!” she heard a little girl say. She lifted her head and saw the child running through the rain to her mother, who stood in the doorway of a store. The child had chestnut hair and bright green eyes. Just like Rosie.
Hermione looked away. She couldn’t explain why she loved Rosie so much. She was Harry and Luna’s daughter through and through, and yet, from the first time Hermione held the infant in her arms, her own maternal instincts kicked into full-gear. She was named godmother to her while Ron was godfather, and they both had spent as much time as possible with her. Rosie would laugh whenever she saw Ron - he had a knack for funny expressions and could stop her from crying almost immediately - and she would smile and hold her arms out to be lifted up whenever she saw Hermione.
“It’s not fair,” she whispered to herself. She wanted to hex something - something she hadn’t wanted to do for years. She wanted to hex Malfoy, to hit him, to make him pay. Hermione hardly ever wanted something so terrible to happen to anybody, but Malfoy - as he said himself - had killed innocence.
She hid in another alley and, without truly knowing why, she Disapparated.
…schadenfreude…
Luna was lying in the hospital bed, holding Rose in her arms and staring into her eyes lovingly. Harry led Hermione and Ron in and they surrounded the bed. Rose’s eyes, so big and such a vibrant green, looked at her visitors. She looked almost curious, if such a feat was possible for a newborn.
“Look,” said Harry to Hermione and Ron, “Luna and I have been discussing this for a while and…well…” He looked at Luna, who smiled at him. “Would you two consider being godparents to Rose?”
“Definitely,” said Ron without hesitation. Words failed Hermione; she merely nodded, smiling.
“Thank you,” said Harry.
“Do you want to hold her?” asked Luna. The war had changed her; she wasn’t as odd or vague as she used to be. She still held her beliefs about such things as Nargles and the Crumple-Horned Snorcack, but she was almost normal-for a witch. Outside, she looked the same: her hair was still long and fair, her skin was still pale, and her eyes were still big and blue.
Hermione smiled. “Of course,” she said. Luna gently placed Rose in Hermione’s arms. She was beautiful. Her hair was already thick and a dark brown colour. She struggled a hand free out of the blanket and reached for Hermione’s hair. She laughed softly and let the baby grab some. She didn’t pull, which was a relief.
I want one, Hermione found herself thinking. It was strange; it was the first time since 1994 that she’d thought about having children. The war had consumed so much of her life that she hadn’t had time to think about settling down. As she handed Rose to Ron, she glanced up into his eyes. She saw that even he had tears threatening to fall from his eyes. She and Ron had called it quits; could they start back up again?
No, she thought. If you broke up, you might never recover.
“She’s perfect,” she said. And she meant it.
…schadenfreude…
She was outside of Azkaban. It was not raining there. She took out her wand and disguised herself to look like a plump woman, a few years older than she truly was, with blue eyes and sandy hair. Then, not giving herself time to think about what she was doing, she stepped inside. Inside the stone prison, there was an old desk, behind which stood a man who was writing something down on parchment. He was middle-aged and Hermione could catch a faint smell of Firewhiskey as she walked up to him. He squinted at her, trying to recognize her, but couldn’t see through her disguise. He handed her a quill and pushed an open book towards her. She wrote down:
Amy Ayres - Draco Malfoy
The man looked at the name of the person she intended to see. She gave him a stony glare that told him not to ask any questions, and he didn’t.
“Cell four, Permanent Residents,” he said in a deep, gravelly voice. She nodded and turned to the bars that guarded the entrance to the wards. They were shimmering slightly, showing off their protective magic. The man sent a non-verbal charm towards them and they began to rise. Only two people knew of the charm, Hermione remembered absently, the Minister for Magic and the prison guard.
She walked through and heard the bars come down again behind her. She turned left and walked all the way down to the end of the long hallway, where a floating sign indicated the Permanent Residents ward. There were no Dementors; there hadn’t been since 1996, yet their presence still seemed to linger. Azkaban was now guarded heavily by new, advanced spells that worked until Malfoy had escaped. Then, new spells were quickly invented to automatically killed anyone who attempted escape. There was a charm that acted like an advanced Shield Charm that protected the prisoner from the spell should they be released or were being taken to court.
It seemed to take Hermione forever to reach cell four. The cells in this ward were spread out, with two cell-widths in between each, and they were only on the one side. Hermione was grateful for this; it would make her purpose a lot easier. In each cell there was a single candle that gave off a dim light. There was a chair to the right-hand side of each, and they seemed to warn visitors to stay away. Hermione sat down in the chair outside of Malfoy’s cell and waited for him to notice her. He was sitting in a chair directly across from her, his skinny legs crossed in a v-shape - like the way kids sat. He looked up at her, not recognizing her. His blonde hair was caked with mud and dirt. He was covered with bits of straw. His clothes were filthy and torn.
Neither of them spoke for what seemed like ages. Finally he narrowed his eyes and said in a raspy voice, “Who are you, and what the bloody hell do you want?”
Hermione took out her wand and allowed her disguise to fade. The only sign that he knew who she was now was the sharp intake of breath through his nostrils and the slight parting of lips. She put her disguise back up should anyone else come this way.
“Granger,” he spat.
“Hello Malfoy,” she said.
Author: Didi (pyrogrl)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst
Word Count: 3509
Warnings: Heavy angst, character death
Summary: Hermione attends the trials of ex-Death Eater Draco Malfoy and learns that she has a darker side: a side that takes pleasure in Malfoy's suffering.
Author's Notes: Big thanks to Beth, who helped me choose my beta-reader, and HUGE thanks to my beta-reader, Kristin! I like comments. I'm really proud of how this fic turned out, and I'm sad to be saying goodbye to it after so long.
Link to Chapter One: Chapter One
Schadenfreude
Part One - Chapter Two
Hermione grinned wickedly as she stood outside Draco Malfoy’s new cell in Azkaban. The man was nearly dead. They had stopped feeding him, though he wouldn’t have eaten anyway. He had accepted the fact that he was going to die.
“Good evening, Draco,” Hermione said tauntingly. He hated being called ‘Draco’. He raised his head weakly from his knees and snarled at her. He was barely human anymore. “Did you have a good sleep last night? Did Rosie come to you again?”
He was too weak to fight back. His eyes merely narrowed, then his head went down again. He couldn’t look up for very long anymore.
“Good,” she said. “Luna has been saying that she can sleep easier these days, knowing that you’re about to die. She knows that your death won’t bring back Rose, but at least if she and Harry have any more children you won’t be around to murder them.”
She had no idea that cruelty could feel so good.
Hermione woke with a jolt, drenched in a cold sweat. She’d been having the same dream for five nights now, ever since the trial. Shuddering, she pushed off her duvet cover and walked shakily to her bathroom.
She was currently living in a one-bedroom Muggle flat in London. It was at nearly the perfect distance between the Ministry of Magic and Diagon Alley, though it wasn’t in the greatest shape. The carpet still smelled like feet despite her many attempts to clean it, including magical products. She was saving up to get the peeling wallpaper repaired (she didn’t want to risk using magic in case her landlord became suspicious) and the electricity was always on the fritz. The plumbing was good however and the water was safe enough to drink. Still, she was only there to sleep, as she spent most of her day at work. All she needed was a bed, bathroom, shower and place to store her books.
She flicked on the bathroom light and only one of the three bulbs above the mirror came on. She groaned, but turned on her sink faucet and splashed some water on her face and dried it with a cloth. She could fix the bulbs with magic, she supposed, but as she was living in a primarily Muggle environment she felt that magic was only to be used when it was absolutely necessary.
Like on my carpet, she thought bitterly. She had been living in that apartment for five years and still she wasn’t used to the smell. An Auror, she had soon learned, was not as well-paying of a job as she’d originally thought. Harry had offered her money quite a few times, but she had always refused. Ron was worse off than she was, anyway.
She looked at her reflection in the mirror. She had dark circles under her eyes. Her skin was pale - almost pasty, she realized with a grimace. Her brown eyes were dull, her lips were chapped, her bushy hair now looked as though it had been first electrocuted and then suffered from intense winter static…Merlin, had she gone to work like that?
“You’re a mess,” she said to herself.
It was Malfoy’s fault, she told herself as she flicked off the light and felt her way back to bed. If he had never attacked Neville…if he had never killed Rosie…and the damn trial…
She couldn’t sleep like that. Rolling onto her side, she looked at her alarm clock. It was five-thirty in the morning. She had to get up for work in a half-hour anyway. Sighing, she sat up and stretched. Again, she threw off her blankets and felt her way through the dark to flick on her lights. Her eyes adjusted quickly and she went to her closet, picking out a white blouse and grey skirt to wear on her way to work (she kept her robes in her office). She laid them out on her bed and left them there while she brushed her teeth and washed her face. She attempted to tame her rat’s nest, but it was a lost cause. Sighing, she grabbed the only ponytail she owned off the counter and tied back as much hair as she could with it before surveying herself in the mirror.
Well, she could look worse. She changed into her clothes for the day and went into her kitchen to make breakfast.
She was out of oatmeal. Hermione opened the door to her fridge. The bulb didn’t flick on. The electricity had broken down that night and while it worked for a little while that morning while she’d been getting ready, it was down again. Now everything in her fridge (milk, lettuce and leftover bacon) was rotten.
Enough was enough. She would complain to the superintendent before she went to work. She was sure that the other residents were just as dissatisfied. Why she hadn’t gone to him earlier, she didn’t know.
Why wait for work? Phone him now. Wake him up, said a nasty little voice in her mind. Huh. That didn’t seem like a bad idea - except she couldn’t phone him. Her phone quit ages ago - not like it would work at this time anyway. Well, sooner or later someone would hear about the poor living conditions here and do something about it.
Hermione went to the door and grabbed her plain brown jacket off the hook. She felt inside the pocket; she had five pounds in it. She had enough for tea, and maybe a muffin. She went into her bedroom and pulled her wand out from under her mattress, shoved it in her sleeve, grabbed her old book-bag, and left.
…schadenfreude…
Hermione stood outside the Burrow, staring up at the place she’d loved to visit as a teenager. It was a bit more crooked than usual, with a few more planks of wood rotting, but it still gave off a feeling of comfort and home to an outsider. She sighed, then knocked on the door. She heard the familiar excited hooting of Ron’s owl, Pigwidgeon. Though he was aging, the owl was still brimming with energy.
“Bloody hell, Pig!” she heard Ron holler at his owl as he approached the door. “Calm down!” He opened the door, holding Pig with his right hand. “Hermione! What are you doing here?”
“I…” Hermione paused. Was it the right time for her to be going to Ron for comfort? They had, after all, just broken up, if one could call it that. She swallowed. Ron was her friend, and a good friend at that. She could tell him.
“Come in,” Ron said, guiding her inside. He and Ginny were the only ones who lived in the Burrow now; Molly and Arthur had died in the war. Hermione saw boxes strewn everywhere, filled to the brim with items that she couldn’t put a name on. Ron caught her gaze. “It’s stuff that Mum and Dad left. We have to sell some of it. To free up space, you know…” He released Pig and lifted a box off a chair with his wand, setting it down by the stairs. Hermione took the hint and sat down in it while Ron cleared a spot for himself. “What’s up?”
“I went to take money out of my account today,” said Hermione tonelessly. “I’ve had a Muggle bank account ever since I was born, and I wanted to convert it into wizard currency.”
Ron nodded. “Yes, and…”
“And my parents removed it all.”
He was taken aback. “Why would they do that?”
“I never told you this, but I had a row with them last week. They wanted me to come back to the Muggle world, go to university, lead a ‘normal’ life. They thought that the wizarding world was too dangerous for someone like me.”
“By ‘someone like you’ they meant…Muggle-born?”
“Partly. They also meant ‘intellectual’. They saw what I went through with the war and they didn’t want that to happen again. They’re trying to protect me. I told them that there was a reason I was a witch, and that was so I could help Harry fight Voldemort.”
“And they said you’d done your part.”
Hermione nodded. Ron made a motion as if to touch her shoulder gently, but Hermione continued: “I told them that it was my decision. I wanted to stay in the wizarding world, because it was so much of my life and because I believe that I’m meant to stay here. Needless to say, they weren’t very pleased with me. They told me that though they supported me, magic had always made them uncomfortable. They’re too logical and rational to accept it, really. Then my father said that I had a choice to make: be a Granger, or be a witch.”
“He didn’t!”
“He did. It’s so unlike them, Ron. They were always encouraging me in my magic before. I guess that when Voldemort returned to power they panicked.” She sighed and rubbed her temples. “I was going to be a doctor,” she said quietly. “Before I learned that I was a witch, I said that I wanted to be a doctor. I suppose they still wanted that for me.” She looked up at Ron, her eyes starting to sting with tears. “I told them that my life would never be fulfilled if I…if I stayed a Granger. And then I Disapparated. I Disapparated right in front of them.”
“Where’d you go?” Ron asked.
“The Leaky Cauldron. I stayed there for a few days while I went apartment hunting. I figured that you and Ginny would be busy here, and Harry and Luna were on their honeymoon…”
“You should have come straight here,” Ron said, coming over to Hermione and kneeling in front of her. “Ginny and I weren’t doing anything important. Do you…” He hesitated and Hermione could see that his conscience was fighting common sense. “Do you want us to lend you some money?”
“No thank you,” she said, smiling softly at his kindness. “We get paid in three days, remember?”
“Right.”
“I think I just needed to tell someone. Thank you, Ron.” She leaned forward and hugged him tightly. “You’ve always been there for me.”
“That’s what friends are for,” he said. “You’re staying here until you can find your own place. No, don’t argue.” Hermione had pulled back, opening her mouth to refuse. “We’re not that bad off. Besides, you know that you want to.” He grinned at her. She smiled back.
“Thank you.”
…schadenfreude…
“Go home.”
Hermione looked up and saw Tonks leaning in the doorway to her office. During the war, she’d been promoted to Head Auror. Hermione was grateful that she had someone like Tonks as her superior; it certainly made her job easier knowing that her Muggle heritage wasn’t keeping her from advancing.
“What?” she asked.
“You look…well, I don’t know how to say this nicely, you look terrible.” She came into the office and perched on the edge of Hermione’s desk. “Go home and rest, Hermione.”
“I can’t,” she protested. “I’ve got a lot of reading to do, for the trial.”
“Consider them done,” she said. “I’ll get Ron to do them. Go home, Hermione.”
“But…” Tonks’ expression hardened. Hermione sighed. “Very well. Let me go tell Ron first.”
“Fine.” Tonks smiled at her and left. Hermione rubbed her eyes and looked at the pile of notes she’d currently written on Malfoy’s past. She couldn’t remember any of what she’d written. She gathered them up and stuck them into her book-bag. She shrugged off her robe, hung it up and grabbed her jacket before heading to Ron’s office.
“Ron,” she said, knocking on the door. He looked up from the book he was reading. Hermione glanced at the spine; it was one he’d read numerous times already on the Unforgivable Curses. Ron insisted that if he studied them hard enough, he could come up with sure-fire charms to protect someone from them that were more efficient that the Shield Charm…well, except for the Killing Curse. So far, he hadn’t had any luck.
“Hey,” he said. “You look tired.”
“Tonks told me to go home,” she said. “Have you spoken to Harry?”
“Yeah. He said that he’ll be ready by the trial. He also wants to apologize for his outburst.”
“I know. I should go see him tonight.”
“No,” he said, making his way around his desk to her. “You need rest.”
I can’t rest, she wanted to say, but found that she couldn’t tell him the truth. “Thank you. Oh, Tonks said that you’re supposed to finish my research.”
“On Malfoy?”
“Yes.” She pulled out the notes she had and magically copied them with her wand. “These are what I have so far. They go up to September, 1997. I want to know exactly what I’m up against.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Ron said. He gave Hermione a quick squeeze before she left.
Once out of the Ministry, she automatically walked towards her flat (Apparition was something she considered useful only in emergencies or long-distance travel, and walking was good exercise anyway). It was about four blocks away; Hermione quickened her pace, for dark clouds circled overhead.
She’d managed to walk another twenty steps before the first fat raindrop fell on her nose. She saw more drops slowly fall, and then it began to pour. She stopped in the middle of sidewalk, allowing the rain to soak her through and through. She had always liked rain. It seemed to purify things. Like the way it was washing garbage out of the gutters, she hoped it would wash her of her nightmares.
All around her, Muggles were shrieking in surprise and diving into the nearest store for shelter. Hermione ignored them and continued to walk. When she came to the intersection where, if she went left, she would head home, she stopped again. She had no desire to go back to the flat that most likely would be a fish tank when she arrived.
She turned right, not knowing her true destination but allowing her feet to carry her there.
You’ll catch cold, she thought to herself. Ducking into a dark alley, she pulled out her wand and performed a warming jinx on herself. Though she would still be wet, she wouldn’t get sick. She tucked her wand away and continued her walk, her hands shoved into her pockets, her head ducked down slightly.
“Mama!” she heard a little girl say. She lifted her head and saw the child running through the rain to her mother, who stood in the doorway of a store. The child had chestnut hair and bright green eyes. Just like Rosie.
Hermione looked away. She couldn’t explain why she loved Rosie so much. She was Harry and Luna’s daughter through and through, and yet, from the first time Hermione held the infant in her arms, her own maternal instincts kicked into full-gear. She was named godmother to her while Ron was godfather, and they both had spent as much time as possible with her. Rosie would laugh whenever she saw Ron - he had a knack for funny expressions and could stop her from crying almost immediately - and she would smile and hold her arms out to be lifted up whenever she saw Hermione.
“It’s not fair,” she whispered to herself. She wanted to hex something - something she hadn’t wanted to do for years. She wanted to hex Malfoy, to hit him, to make him pay. Hermione hardly ever wanted something so terrible to happen to anybody, but Malfoy - as he said himself - had killed innocence.
She hid in another alley and, without truly knowing why, she Disapparated.
…schadenfreude…
Luna was lying in the hospital bed, holding Rose in her arms and staring into her eyes lovingly. Harry led Hermione and Ron in and they surrounded the bed. Rose’s eyes, so big and such a vibrant green, looked at her visitors. She looked almost curious, if such a feat was possible for a newborn.
“Look,” said Harry to Hermione and Ron, “Luna and I have been discussing this for a while and…well…” He looked at Luna, who smiled at him. “Would you two consider being godparents to Rose?”
“Definitely,” said Ron without hesitation. Words failed Hermione; she merely nodded, smiling.
“Thank you,” said Harry.
“Do you want to hold her?” asked Luna. The war had changed her; she wasn’t as odd or vague as she used to be. She still held her beliefs about such things as Nargles and the Crumple-Horned Snorcack, but she was almost normal-for a witch. Outside, she looked the same: her hair was still long and fair, her skin was still pale, and her eyes were still big and blue.
Hermione smiled. “Of course,” she said. Luna gently placed Rose in Hermione’s arms. She was beautiful. Her hair was already thick and a dark brown colour. She struggled a hand free out of the blanket and reached for Hermione’s hair. She laughed softly and let the baby grab some. She didn’t pull, which was a relief.
I want one, Hermione found herself thinking. It was strange; it was the first time since 1994 that she’d thought about having children. The war had consumed so much of her life that she hadn’t had time to think about settling down. As she handed Rose to Ron, she glanced up into his eyes. She saw that even he had tears threatening to fall from his eyes. She and Ron had called it quits; could they start back up again?
No, she thought. If you broke up, you might never recover.
“She’s perfect,” she said. And she meant it.
…schadenfreude…
She was outside of Azkaban. It was not raining there. She took out her wand and disguised herself to look like a plump woman, a few years older than she truly was, with blue eyes and sandy hair. Then, not giving herself time to think about what she was doing, she stepped inside. Inside the stone prison, there was an old desk, behind which stood a man who was writing something down on parchment. He was middle-aged and Hermione could catch a faint smell of Firewhiskey as she walked up to him. He squinted at her, trying to recognize her, but couldn’t see through her disguise. He handed her a quill and pushed an open book towards her. She wrote down:
Amy Ayres - Draco Malfoy
The man looked at the name of the person she intended to see. She gave him a stony glare that told him not to ask any questions, and he didn’t.
“Cell four, Permanent Residents,” he said in a deep, gravelly voice. She nodded and turned to the bars that guarded the entrance to the wards. They were shimmering slightly, showing off their protective magic. The man sent a non-verbal charm towards them and they began to rise. Only two people knew of the charm, Hermione remembered absently, the Minister for Magic and the prison guard.
She walked through and heard the bars come down again behind her. She turned left and walked all the way down to the end of the long hallway, where a floating sign indicated the Permanent Residents ward. There were no Dementors; there hadn’t been since 1996, yet their presence still seemed to linger. Azkaban was now guarded heavily by new, advanced spells that worked until Malfoy had escaped. Then, new spells were quickly invented to automatically killed anyone who attempted escape. There was a charm that acted like an advanced Shield Charm that protected the prisoner from the spell should they be released or were being taken to court.
It seemed to take Hermione forever to reach cell four. The cells in this ward were spread out, with two cell-widths in between each, and they were only on the one side. Hermione was grateful for this; it would make her purpose a lot easier. In each cell there was a single candle that gave off a dim light. There was a chair to the right-hand side of each, and they seemed to warn visitors to stay away. Hermione sat down in the chair outside of Malfoy’s cell and waited for him to notice her. He was sitting in a chair directly across from her, his skinny legs crossed in a v-shape - like the way kids sat. He looked up at her, not recognizing her. His blonde hair was caked with mud and dirt. He was covered with bits of straw. His clothes were filthy and torn.
Neither of them spoke for what seemed like ages. Finally he narrowed his eyes and said in a raspy voice, “Who are you, and what the bloody hell do you want?”
Hermione took out her wand and allowed her disguise to fade. The only sign that he knew who she was now was the sharp intake of breath through his nostrils and the slight parting of lips. She put her disguise back up should anyone else come this way.
“Granger,” he spat.
“Hello Malfoy,” she said.